Sunday, July 29, 2012

The United Nations spotlight has finally fell on Myanmar. By taking note of human rights excesses and killings of Muslims in the Southeast Asian country, the world body has made a decent beginning.

This is a welcome development after a prolonged criminal silence over the mayhem that the Buddhist population was unleashing over the Muslim minority in Rohingya. The UN human rights chief Navi Pillay’s institution of an independent investigation to probe into the abuses that has seen hundreds of Muslims slaughtered and more than 80,000 displaced in Rakhine state should get to its logical conclusion.

The silence and aloofness of the democrats, including Noble laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has literally disappointed not only the Burmese but also the world at large. It is high time she comes out of her self-carved domain of political and ethnic exigency and speaks out in favour of the discriminated community.